In December 2015 The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a streamlined and user-friendly web-based aircraft registration process for owners of small unmanned aircraft (UAS) weighing more than 0.55 pounds (250 grams) and less than 55 pounds (approx. 25 kilograms) including payloads such as on-board cameras.

What can you do with Drone2Map? A presentation about the new, Drone2Map for ArcGIS filmed on location at the 2016 Esri DevSummit event, Palm Springs, CA. Learn about the capabilities of this new product from Esri, expected to be released later in 2016

Are you interested in adding a drone / UAV certification to your resume or Linkedin profile? If so, take note of the latest EDU offering from Penn state University. Used by countless industries for data collection, surveillance and more, PSU has identified that there exists a need for experts who can interpret and apply the rapidly expanding data and images generated by them. According to PSU, the 12-credit program is aimed primarily at professionals with some experience in geospatial intelligence. NOTE, this is NOT official (FAA) drone operator’s certification

Working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers are tackling the issue of unmanned aircraft safety. The team recently became the first professional sports franchise to record a video reminding fans – and everyone else – to abide by the laws covering personal drone use.

Create a no fly zone around your property? Yep, that’s pretty much what a non-profit is enabling people to do, however, it has yet to be determined how much weight this “no fly zone” would have or if it could be enforced as a private area.

An interesting read on the merits of UAV (drone) technology in the battle against wildfires. Sadly, the media often has focused on the pitfalls of UAV hobbyists grounding aerial attacks on fires, however, there’s also the upside of the industry that has joined the battle. This from KUOW… The National Park Serviceused a borrowed surveillance dronethis past week over the long-burningParadise Firein Olympic National Park. The Boeing Company’s unmanned aircraft subsidiary Insitu provided the drone and two professional pilots at no charge for a demonstration. The nearly 50-pound, catapult-launchedScanEagleplane flew on six days — both day and night.

Insitu operator Joseph Cooper prepares the ScanEagle UAS for launch to surveil the Paradise Fire in Olympic National Park earlier this August.

I caught wind of an impressive use of technology in a recent ABC news story covering the EPA spill in the Animis River in Colorado. The story uses Google maps technology to show the area extent but even more impressive is the UAV captured video providing an incredible perspective to convey to the viewers the damage that has resulted to the affected areas. The UAV videography technology was provided by Terra Imaging – jump directly to the video HERE

Ever wonder when will commercial drone activity become a reality in the US and also at the same time wonder why Canada is so much further ahead? According to this fine read from Popular Science it really is simple, “The regulatory process is admirably simple, usually requiring only 20 days to process an application for an exemption, known as a Special Flight Operations Certificate”.

More cool tech at CES 2015! Even where mind-blowing innovations are found at every turn, the flying wearable camera known as Nixie pulled off a dazzling snapshot of the future during Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s keynote to kick off the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show.